Ruth Roemer (1916 – August 1, 2005) was an American lawyer and public health researcher who championed the importance of

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

in the field of

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

.Woo, Elaine. "Ruth Roemer, 89; Pioneer in Public Health Law Was Active in Tobacco, Abortion Issues."

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

, August 5, 2005

Early life

Ruth Joy Rosebaum was bornGordon, Dan. "Ruth Roemer, Public Health." UCLA Spotlight, September 1, 2002 in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1916. Ruth was the elder of two girls; her younger sister was Hilda Rosebaum (Kahne). Their father, a plant pathologist, died at age 37 of a bacterial infection resulting from a tooth extraction."Ruth Roemer: The Fighting Type." UCLA Public Health, June 2002 After their father's death, Mrs. Rosebaum moved the family to

Milford, Connecticut Milford is a coastal city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, located between New Haven and Bridgeport. The population was 50,558 at the 2020 United States Census. The city includes the village of Devon and the borough of Woodmon ...

, where Ruth spent the rest of her youth.

Education

Rosebaum attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

and graduated in 1936"Ruth Roemer, JD Assumes APHA Presidency." AJPH. Vol. 77, No. 1, January 1987 with a BA degree in English. She planned to teach, but changed her mind after traveling to post-

WWI World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Europe with the

American Student Union The American Student Union (ASU) was a national left-wing organization of college students of the 1930s, best remembered for its protest activities against militarism. Founded by a 1935 merger of Communist and Socialist student organizations, the ...

. Motivated by her travel experiences, upon her return she resolved to do something "socially relevant." She returned to Cornell University to study law, graduating from Cornell University Law School in 1939. While attending law school, Roemer co-edited the Cornell Journal of Opinion with fellow student Milton Roemer (namesake of Roemer's law), whom she married in 1938.

Early career

After receiving her law degree, Roemer represented the United Electrical Workers in Washington during the 1940s. Roemer and her husband moved to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1951, when he became the Chief of Social and Occupational Health for the newly formed

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...

(WHO). Soon after Milton Roemer's appointment at the WHO, the United States withdrew his appointment under the political pressure of the

McCarthy era McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina ...

."Obituary Milton I. Roemer, 1916-2001." Bull World Health Organ. Vol. 79, No. 5, January 2001 In 1953 the Roemers moved to Saskastchewan, Canada. In Canada, Roemer worked as a researcher with the Royal Commission on Agriculture and Rural Life in Saskatchewan. By the late 1950s, Roemer and her family had returned to the United States and Cornell University. At Cornell, Roemer worked with Professor Bertram F. Wilcox as the associate director of a research project investigating the admissions decisions of New York mental hospitals. Their research resulted in a book ''Mental Illness and Due Process'' which led to landmark New York state mental hospital admission policy legislation.

UCLA

Roemer and her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1962, where she joined the health services faculty of

University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health The UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health is the graduate school of public health at UCLA, and is located within the Center for Health Sciences building on UCLA's campus in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, Californi ...

. She soon became the vice president and principal organizer of the California Committee on Therapeutic Abortion. Roemer and her husband founded the national health law program at UCLA, which ultimately—with Roemer's support—became an independent organization, the National Health Law Program, in 1969. Roemer is perhaps best known for her work crafting international

tobacco control Tobacco control is a field of international public health science, policy and practice dedicated to addressing tobacco use and thereby reducing the morbidity and mortality it causes. Since most cigarettes and cigars and hookahs contain/use ...

policy. A heavy smoker herself, Roemer switched from cigarettes to pipes in 1961 and quit smoking altogether in 1972. She and

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

law professor, Allyn Taylor, outlined what would become the world's first public health treaty: the

WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is a treaty adopted by the 56th World Health Assembly held in Geneva, Switzerland on 21 May 2003. It became the first World Health Organization treaty adopted under ...

. Ratified in 2003, 168 counties have signed the treaty.Tobacco Documents Online. “Roemer, Ruth.” Tobacco Documents Online
/ref> In her tenure at UCLA, Roemer taught a generation of public health students and made significant contributions to the fields of women's

reproductive rights Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst countries around the world. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows: Reproductive rights rest o ...

, health-law, health workforce policy and tobacco legislation. Her notable publications include: * Mental Illness and Due Process (1962) * Public Hospitals under Private Management: The California Experience (1983) * Legislative action to combat the world tobacco epidemic (WHO, 1992) * Abortion law: the approaches of different nations (APHA, 1967) * Origins of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2005) Roemer was an active member of the American Public Health Association (APHA) since joining the organization in 1967. She served on several APHA committees and was elected president of the organization in October 1986 and served a one-year term. She was the seventh woman elected to the presidency of the association since it was founded in 1872. Roemer taught health policy, law and ethics at UCLA's school of public health for over 40 years.

Personal life

Ruth and Milton Roemer had two children, John E. Roemer and Beth Roemer Lewis. Milton Roemer died of heart failure on January 3, 2001, at the age of 84. Ruth and Milton Roemer were married for 62 years. Roemer died of cardiac arrest on August 1, 2005, at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in West Los Angeles, California. She was 89 years old.

References

* Gordon, Dan. "Ruth Roemer, Public Health." UCLA Spotlight, September 1, 2002 * Woo, Elaine. "Ruth Roemer, 89; Pioneer in Public Health Law Was Active in Tobacco, Abortion Issues." Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2005 * "Ruth Roemer: The Fighting Type." UCLA Public Health, June 2002 * "Ruth Roemer, JD Assumes APHA Presidency." AJPH. Vol. 77, No. 1, January 1987 * "Roemer, Ruth J. (nee Rosenbaum)" New York Times, August 7, 2005 * Oliver, Myrna. "Dr. Milton Roemer; Expert on Public Health Taught at UCLA." Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2001 * "Obituary Milton I. Roemer, 1916-2001." Bull World Health Organ. Vol. 79, No. 5, January 2001 * Conklin, Micki. ed. "Milton I. Roemer, Public Health: Los Angeles." University of California: In Memoriam, 2001 * Online Archive of California. "Finding Aid for the California Committee on Therapeutic Abortion Records, 1966-1974." Online Archive of California

* National Health Law Program. "NHeLP Mourns Death of Co-Founder Ruth Roemer." National Health Law Program

* Tobacco Documents Online. "Roemer, Ruth." Tobacco Documents Online

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roemer, Ruth 1916 births Lawyers from Philadelphia 2005 deaths Lawyers from Hartford, Connecticut Cornell Law School alumni UCLA School of Public Health faculty 20th-century American women lawyers 20th-century American lawyers American women academics 21st-century American women